The invention relates to a sorting apparatus for sorting sheet like articles.
Sorting apparatuses of this type for printed or copied sheets are known. In these apparatus, starting from a fixed delivery path, which may belong to a printer or copier, the sheets are transferred to the feeding device, which directs them to the distributing device. The deflecting members of the distributing device are designed as pivotable flaps and for each of the same there is provided an electromagnet as actuating means, in order to deflect the recording media out of the transporting route, shared up to the respective deflecting member, into a depositing compartment.
Since, in the deflecting position, the flaps block the transporting route to the respectively following depositing compartments, the actuation of a next flap with respect to a preceding depositing compartment must not take place as long as the preceding sheet is still in the corresponding region of the transporting route. Each depositing compartment is therefore assigned a sensor, for example a photocell responding to the passage of the rear edge of a sheet, in order to establish the respective actual conditions during the transport of a sheet and, in interaction with a computing control device, to actuate the flaps with correspondingly coordinated timing. In spite of this outlay, the statistical reliability of such sorting apparatuses is unsatisfactory.
It is likewise disadvantageous in the case of these known apparatuses that the actuation of the flaps necessary locally in each case requires electric motors or electromagnets in corresponding number and also corresponding wiring for the distributed current conduction. Apart from the costs, this has as a consequence undesired interfering electromagnetic radiations.